With the present day increase in the number of checks and other financial instruments processed by banking institutions, there is an increased need to automate the requesting, delivery and display of check and other financial instrument copies. This invention accordingly relates to an electronic system for storing and retrieving electronic images of checks and other financial instruments. The system of the invention is particularly adapted to the storage and retrieval of check images and the images of other commercial paper instruments, but could also be employed to store and retrieve images of other documents.
The financial services industry has provided for more than a century the ability for its customers to write checks and similar instruments. In current practice a payor or customer writes a check representing an amount to be deducted from its account. The check is given to the payee. Checks are normally presented for payment by the payee to the payee's banking institution (the "payee bank"). In turn, the payee bank presents the check to the payor bank. The payor bank then pays the payee bank, and deducts the check amount from the payor's account, against which the check is drawn The check is then marked "PAID" and is often made available in some form (e.g. the original check or a photocopy) to the customer/payor as a record of the payment.
For several decades now the U.S. Government has also required that financial institutions maintain a seven year library (e.g. on microfilm, microfiche or original hard copy) of all checks deposited and/or paid from the institution's accounts. Because the payor bank is required to maintain this library, it makes and archives a copy of both sides of the "PAID" check prior to forwarding the original instrument, or a copy of it, to the customer.
Accordingly, payer banks must maintain millions upon millions of copies of checks in their files. For example, if a single large customer/payor writes 2,500 checks each business day, seven years of records will comprise over 4,500,000 checks for that customer alone. Thus, banks fill tremendous storage spaces with copies of checks.
At some future date, the payor may be required to produce a copy of a check as proof of payment. This often requires that the payor retrieve the bank copy of the instrument from the payor bank's archive. Certain financial institution customers, particularly those that write large numbers of checks to the general public, often are required to produce check copies systematically. The situation is the following: the payor/customer writes a check, sends it to the payee and receives through its standard checking account reporting mechanism (e.g. statement) notification that the check has been paid. The payor/customer subsequently receives an inquiry or complaint from the payee stating that payment (i.e. the check) has not been received.
As proof of payment, the payor/customer must produce the original "PAID" check, or a front and back photocopy of the "PAID" check. From this record, it can determine who cashed it and where it was cashed. If the payee is in error, and has been paid, the payor will typically forward to the payee a correspondence enclosing a copy of the "PAID" check.
The actual number of requests to a payor bank for check copies based upon a payee claim that payment has not been received varies by the type of check. Some known example statistics are:
Type of Check Request/Checks Written health insurance refunds 1/2000 personal income tax refunds 1/200 social security payments 1/100 welfare payments 1/50.
To accommodate these requests, financial institution customers often maintain their own extensive check libraries.
Often such customer-maintained check libraries are kept on microfilm, which can be made by the customer itself from the returned check or can be purchased directly from the financial institution. The financial institution's seven year library of check microfilm is often used as a backup source for check copies. In some cases, due to the cost of maintaining an archive, and fulfilling payee requests, the bank's seven-year library is the customer's primary source.
Furthermore, depending on the type of customer and account, the institution is often subpoenaed by the government to produce photocopies or originals from its seven year library.
Whether the original checks are kept or they are reduced to microfilm, and regardless of whether it is maintained by the payor bank or the customer, it is readily understood that there are many costs associated with maintaining a check archive and retrieving check copies upon request. For example, the production and manipulation of microfilm libraries is a labor intensive process and the quality of the photocopies produced is often low. Although storing a high resolution digital image of the front and rear surface of a check could be used as a potential replacement for microfilm, the cost of storing all checks in such format, and the difficulty inherent in locating and retrieving them, made this storage media impracticable in the past.
To fulfill its customers' requests or comply with subpoenas, countless man-hours of searching are required to locate copies of the requested instruments. Due to the immense volume of stored information, the average turn-around time--the time elapsed from when the request is made until the copy is received--for fulfilling such requests can vary from a minimum of 24 hours to one to two weeks or more. Importantly, if a check copy cannot be found or its quality is too poor to reconcile the inquiry, the payor may be required to write the check again and send it to the recipient--incurring the expense of double payment despite the expense of maintaining a check library, and searching for a check.
Further, to facilitate processing of checks, the banking industry has, for many years, used a Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) line on each check. The MICR line of a check is a series of alpha-numeric digits encoded on a check in magnetic ink. The MICR line is also optically readable. A MICR line is found along the bottom of most checks. The encoded information in the MICR line usually includes the account number and check number. Where the check writer (or some intermediate in the check handling process) chooses, the encoded information in the MICR line also includes the amount of the check. Frequently, a large company that prints its own checks may encode the check amount in the MICR line. Normally, when a check is processed, the information contained in the MICR line is scanned, interpreted, and becomes part of the bank's electronic record of the check.
While previously many banking institutions were forced to maintain large staffs of people to handle manually the time-consuming and tedious task of processing check copy requests, it is desirable to provide a system whereby a customer of the banking institution can request, retrieve, and display copies of checks and, preferably, generate correspondence with a copy of a check, i.e. a check image, all without bank staff involvement. Thus, the present application is directed to an automated system which retains images of the front and back of each check and data associated with that check. The associated data includes the account number, the check number and the check amount as well as image data. The system allows a user to request, retrieve and display check copies with turnaround time much faster than in the prior art.